Missing AN-32 aircraft: Possibility of sabotage is remote, says Manohar Parrikar

Describing the missing AN-32 aircraft of the Indian Air Force “almost as good as new aircraft,” defence minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday said the possibility of sabotage in the mysterious disappearance of the aircraft was “comparatively very less.”

The minister informed the Rajya Sabha that India had also sought the help of the US in locating the plane.

Replying to clarifications by members on the issue, the minister said all types of techniques are being used to locate the aircraft and he was personally monitoring the situation.

“We owe that much to the people, I have seen (to it) that every family is kept in touch,” Mr Parrikar said.

Sharing the concern of members, the minister gave details of the operation being carried out for the last one week in trying to locate the plane. It was carrying 29 people and was flying from Tambaram in Tamil Nadu to Port Blair.

“I can’t speculate because we are searching for it... I will not like to speculate. But I can say only this much. The possibility of any sabotage, although we are checking all angles, is comparatively very less because they have standard operating procedures,” replied the minister as members raised questions over how the aircraft went missing.

Mr Parrikar said he had also spoken to several experts and former air chiefs, who were also “puzzled by the sudden disappearance”.

He informed the House that at the time of disappearance, the aircraft was on “secondary/passive radar” and that “There was no SOS or transmission of any frequency. It just disappeared so that is the worrying part”.

The government has sought help from the US for detection of images and is seeking help from American defence forces to ascertain whether their satellites had picked up any signal before the disappearance of the plane.

“It is total blank. There was not even a single signal recorded. That is the reason we are contacting American defence forces to ascertain whether their satellites picked up any signal....Besides our own satellite imagery, we have asked the US for their imagery for the detection of emergency frequency to space based assets. Foreign countries we have already asked. I only hope that our efforts succeed,” he added while replying to queries whether foreign help has been sought.

On queries about the aircraft’s age, the Defence minister said it was “almost as good as new aircraft”.

Elaborating he said, “I don’t know exact age but it is well within lifetime. It has undergone first overhauling. Lot of replacement has been done.... They are considered as one of the safest aircraft.”

He said the accident rate of Indian Air Force is 0.23 out of 10,000 hours of flying against the global rate of 0.023 and assured the House that maximum efforts would be made to ensure that the mishaps come down.

“If aircraft is not fit for flying we don’t fly it. We have decided to check up whether we can improve the signalling system,” he added.

About the missing aircraft, Mr Parrikar said that after the first overhaul, the plane had already done 279 hours and the pilot was experienced, having put in 500 hours on this route.

The minister said, “Let us hope that we track it down. I can assure that maximum efforts will be taken.”

Giving details of the search operation so far, he said 10 Indian Navy ships as well as submarine ‘Sindhudhwaj’ are carrying searches and “virtually checking up everything”. He said 23 inputs had been located, out of which 6 were of the nature of blinks and all inputs have been checked, he said.

“If we locate something, then we can send deepwater equipment to pick up. We have also diverted ‘Sagar Nidhi’ (vessel) from Mauritius. It will reach on August one and it can go upto 6,000 metres depth. But we have to locate objects. We have to locate it because at this depth you cannot keep on scratching the bottom,” Mr Parrikar said.

On Thursday, he had said that “several inputs and leads” regarding floating objects have been picked up but there is no concrete evidence so far with respect to missing AN-32 aircraft of the IAF.